July 2015

10/22/2013

AMERICAN WEB LOAN REVIEWS

American Web Loan is a pretty popular tribal lending company. But what do customers have to say about the company? It's one thing to get a review from someone who looks over their website and calls the firm, but we need to hear from people who have actually done business with the company. Let's review some of the folks who have taken a loan from American Web Loan.

The first review is not a very flattering one. This review of American Web Loan comes from December of 2011. The customer writes "they are charging me $270.00 every two weeks interest only, for a $900.00 Loani got for an emergency. I was told I would pay monthly until loan was paid off, finding out they are deducting from my account every two weeks, which makes it impossible to pay it off."

Doesn't sound like a loan product that I would be very interested in, how about you? I didn't think so. The problem with the company is that they are not very good when it comes to their interest rate. Now they do offer some discounting on their interest rates if you are a returning customer but how many of us have already taken out a loan with American Web Loan? Exactly, hardly anyone. So if we are looking to do business with the firm that means we will be looking at these high rates.

Here is another review from a customer in Utah. She wrote that the "company is charging us 180.00 a week for fees. No money is going towards the payment of loan amount. Said u have to set amount that you want takin out. I set this up on their site before I got off the phone with person that was speaking to me, to make sure it was done right. We've paid 540.00 out of 600.00 and their saying we still owe 600" which is not too surprising. The interest rates and loans are arranged so that you will keep paying on the loan unless you make the specific request to get the loan paid in full. Still want to participate in a tribal loan?

Another review comes from a customer back in February. They wrote that they "actually took two loans out from American Web Loan, the first was for $700 which went pretty uneventfully; paid an additional $180 bi-weekly fee here and there but I really didn't monitor it or pay it much mind. It was paid off rather quickly but the second loan was for $1,000 and I was told by the American Web Loan customer service rep prior to accepting the loan that there would be a $276 finance charge which I figured meant that I would be paying back $1276 on a $1,000 loan, I thought that was acceptable not knowing and never being told otherwise that it was a $276 withdrawal bi-weekly for fees and none of that money was being applied to what they like to call the principal amount. Unfortunately I realized this after I was already nine payments in totaling $2,484 with my balance still at a $1,000 so in essence you must apply more than the finance charge for any money to be applied directly to the loan, the more you pay the lower your finance charge is but I was also told that if I didn't apply anything other than the finance charge bi-weekly for 15 payments the loan would be paid in full which means on a $1,000 loan you would be paying back a whopping $4,140 but at any point you apply additional money to the finance charge it affects your total balance, so for example if your three, six, nine, or 14 payments in on just paying the finance charge and you apply even one additional dollar to your next payment your pretty much starting off at the beginning again so your even more screwed, so at this point I'm 11 payments in and paid out $3,036 at which point I have taken advice from several friends to close my account."

This is an example of two things. One, that American Web Loan is a dangerous loan company if you let the loan go beyond the original due date, assuming you use it like a payday loan. That 14 day calendar date is meaningful because everytime you let the loan roll beyond that 14th day you are incuring more finance charges and those will add up very painfully. Two, this customer simply did not read the fine print on the loan document that they signed. They also didn't pay attention to the structure of the first loan that he took out, because he was getting hit with the finance fee (although it was for a lower dollar amount) every 14 days. This is not good, it's really important to understand the loan you are agreeing to pay on and pay back.

These reviews lead me to the conclusion that I'm not very interested in working with American Web Loan. The company isn't terrible but I just prefer other tribal lenders, particularly Plain Green Loans and Mobiloans.

One more note about American Web Loan, it's surprising to see how much the firm was willing to lend to these customers. I wonder if all of them were returning customers, except the person that borrowed $270, because as of today American Web Loan will only loan $300 to new customers. Evidently they loan substantially more money to returning customers in good standing.

But either way let's stick with some of the larger (and higher quality) Native American lenders such as Plain Green Loans, Mobiloans, Clear Creek Lending and Great Plains Lending. As least I'm going to, because American Web Loan is just not bringing enough to the table for me to give them my business.